Consensus Hard to Come by Without Key Players

By

Gerald F. Seib

Updated July 28, 2009 12:01 a.m. ET

In big-time politics, personalities matter. If you want evidence, just look at the wrangling over health care.

In this case, it's the absence on the front lines of four big personalities -- Rep. John Dingell, Sen. Ted Kennedy, former Sen. Tom Daschle and Sen. John McCain -- that helps explain why Congress and the Obama administration are having such a hard time getting something done.

The absence of some big players in the health care debate may be one reason why Congress and the Obama administration are finding it hard to find agreement. WSJ Executive Washington editor Jerry Seib explains.

There's no guarantee that if these four were playing a bigger role that a bill changing health care in America -- for better or worse -- would be on the road to completion. But there's no doubt their reduced role has made the journey harder for those who want to overhaul the system. More important, it has reduced the chances that a truly bipartisan outcome can emerge.

Why? Because at the end of the day, getting a big piece of legislation is, like a business deal or contract negotiation, a flesh-and-blood exercise that comes down to a small group in a room deciding whether they understand and trust one another enough to take a chance. Under other circumstances, these four men would have been the leading figures in that process. Consider them in turn.

John Dingell: The House's longest-serving member, now in his 54th year in Congress, ran the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee with an iron fist for years. But the Michigan Democrat was ousted after last fall's election in a coup engineered by the new chairman, California Rep. Henry Waxman.

Now, it is that committee where progress is hung up in the House, largely because of a big ideological gap between the liberal Mr. Waxman and a group of moderate to conservative Democrats on his panel. Mr. Dingell, less reflexively liberal than Mr. Waxman, had better relations with those moderates. Beyond that, he was a canny and feared chairman famed for his skill at coaxing members and calling in favors.

There's no way to know for sure whether this crucial committee would have agreed on a plan more acceptable to moderates with Mr. Dingell in the driver's seat, but it's entirely possible.

Ted Kennedy: Just as the reduced role of Mr. Dingell may be making it harder for Democrats to come together in the House, so too is Mr. Kennedy's absence making it harder for Democrats and Republicans to reach common ground in the Senate.

In a sense, the Massachusetts Democrat spent his long career preparing for this moment. He became the legislative maestro on health, and evolved from liberal icon to master of the bipartisan compromise. He has, of course, been stricken with brain cancer and is off fighting the disease rather than roaming the Senate, reduced to weighing in by phone.

And that matters. Just a few days ago, Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, a leader on both the finance and health committees, quit negotiations on the health bill, saying the discussions would have been more bipartisan had his longtime friend Mr. Kennedy been there. A rhetorical flourish, perhaps, but certainly a sign that the absence is felt.

Though a Kennedy friend and fellow senior Democrat, Sen. Christopher Dodd, stepped in to steer a health bill through Mr. Kennedy's health committee, the more important venue now has become the Finance Committee. There, the process has gridlocked while members search for a bipartisan approach to pay the big tab for expanding health-insurance coverage.

Tom Daschle: At the outset of his term, President Barack Obama's master plan for passing health legislation revolved around Mr. Daschle serving as both secretary of health and human services and chief White House adviser on a health overhaul. The idea was to take maximum advantage of the former senator's deep knowledge of health programs, the understanding of the legislative process he developed as Senate majority leader, and the friendships and relationships he built in a career on Capitol Hill.

All that went out the window when Mr. Daschle withdrew his nomination after running into controversy for failing to pay all the taxes he should have for his work with a consulting firm. Former Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius now is HHS secretary, and Nancy-Ann DeParle is chief White House health adviser. Both are smart and experienced, but neither has the stroke on Capitol Hill that Mr. Daschle does.

John McCain: Last year's unsuccessful presidential nominee is still representing Arizona in the Senate. But paradoxically, the fact that he was the Republican standard-bearer in 2008 now crimps his ability to play the role he once would have assumed, as chief Senate maverick willing to seek agreement across the aisle on tough problems.

More than that, Mr. McCain proposed during the presidential campaign to fund his version of a revamped health-care system by taxing employer-sponsored insurance benefits, compelling then-candidate Obama to take a stand against that idea. Now it's harder for Mr. Obama to reverse course -- and harder for Mr. McCain to swoop in with his financing idea, which just might be the smartest approach with the potential to cut through the Gordian knot now stalling a bill in the Senate.

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